We joined the school a year after everyone else, because of our move from Cheddar, but it did not take us long to make friends. We soon became part of the school ‘in-crowd’, mainly because of our style and music. Craig was a ‘boff’ – one of the boffins who took school seriously.
Our school uniform was black trousers, jumper and shoes, a white shirt and a red, yellow and green striped tie. Small collars were fashionable at the time, and I would tie my tie with the thin side on top and the thick side tucked into my shirt. I was always very neat and clean, but I was in trouble because my hair was long. Mum and Tony went to see the headmaster about it, and Tony argued forcibly that because we were otherwise so tidy and clean, and our hair was freshly washed every day, they were making a fuss about nothing. His only concession was that he agreed we would tie it back during woodwork, when the school reckoned it was dangerous. As the rest of the boys of our age seemed to think it was cool to be scruffy, the headmaster took his point.
Clothes were a constant preoccupation. Mum gave us a clothing allowance from the age of eleven onwards. She gave us £20 a month, which was enough to keep us in the styles we enjoyed, because you could buy a good jacket for £30. By the time I was twelve or thirteen I had a couple of suits and loads of tops and trousers. I spent most of my spare time, when I wasn’t rehearsing with the band, working to earn more money.
Tony was running a property maintenance company again, and I used to do some work for him. I remember when I was thirteen spending a large chunk of my summer holiday plastering the Inland Revenue office at Victoria and then, because Tony was again having financial problems, never being paid. I had to lug huge bags of plaster up to the top floor. Granddad was helping as well, and he was never paid either: we still give Tony a hard time about it. When, in later years, the Inland Revenue began pursuing me for money I liked to think about how I gave them my services for nothing.
I also had a weekend job at a garden centre: hard, heavy work unloading paving stones for £5.75 a day. After cycling a few miles to get there at seven thirty in the morning and back again at six in the evening, I was completely exhausted, and the payment was sheer exploitation. Later on I had a Saturday job at a hairdressers. It was originally arranged by the school, for work experience, and I stayed on doing a couple of evenings and Saturdays after that. I put down ‘hairdressing’ as my work experience choice because I had visions of spending a week in a trendy London salon, running my fingers through the beautiful blonde locks of some real stunners. Instead I ended up in a village shop in Windlesham, shampooing the blue-rinsed hair of the elderly clients. It was a unisex salon, and I remember a weird experience washing the hair of a bald man, which I know is a contradiction in terms. I can remember my thumbs skidding across the frictionless surface of his bald crown, and him wriggling in his chair as if he were enjoying it. It must have been the shortest shampoo on record. But I managed to save enough money to trade in my electronic drum kit for an acoustic one.
By the time I was fourteen I knew that I was going to give the music business a very serious try when I left school. We were rehearsing five nights a week, and I’m afraid homework always took second place to drums. I thought that if I didn’t make it in the music world I could always study later. Needless to say, my school reports were littered with remarks like ‘could do better’ and ‘needs to try harder’.
I was happy enough to go to English lessons, but that was because the teacher was pretty. There was another teacher who was really tasty, the music teacher. I used to look at her and wish I was a few years older. It worried me though: fancying a teacher seemed a bit kinky, almost a perversion!
Matt – at this stage of his life everyone called him Matthew, except for me and I called him Maffy – and I were often in trouble for childish pranks, pathetic little rebellions against the mindless authority of the school regime. Years later, when we were famous, the school asked if we would go back there to perform: I wouldn’t go back there for any money. They did nothing to encourage me and I can actually remember a chemistry teacher laughing with contempt when someone said I wanted to make records when I left.
There was one thing about school I enjoyed, and that was running. I was county standard at cross country and 1,500 metres, and every afternoon after school I would change into my running gear and do an eight-mile run from Camberley to Frimley and Lightwater and then back home. I was ridiculously fit. Matt was more interested in athletics, and always did well at long jump, high jump and triple jump.
After Caviar I was invited to join another band called Hypnosis, with another couple of brothers. They were a class above us, but by this time I had a reputation as one of the best drummers around the area, for my age. I did a couple of gigs with them and they were keen that I should stay. I insisted that Matt also be allowed to join, as a singer. They agreed, and that was Matt’s first taste of singing in public. Everyone always assumes that Matt was the instigator of our career in music, but it was actually the other way round: at that age it was me who was paving the way for him.
Meanwhile, though, he was more interested in a career on the stage. He took drama as one of his optional subjects at school, and his teacher, a lovely lady called Jane Roberts – one of the few teachers you could really talk to – recognized his potential and gave him the starring role in the school production of Cabaret, in which he played the German Master of Ceremonies. He was brilliant: he got tremendous reviews. The actress June Whitfield was in the audience, and so were some senior members of the Royal School of Ballet, friends of the drama teacher. They all said that he had a real talent and should go to drama school.
All the family came to see the show. Mum was very proud, and even she admits she was surprised how good Matt was. Dad said he was bowled over: it took him a few minutes to realize it was his son up there speaking German and performing so brilliantly. I had a small one-line role as a sailor in the same production. I thought it would be good fun and I got to miss a few lessons for rehearsals.
After playing with Hypnosis Matt and I broke away and started rehearsing just with Craig. We didn’t really have a name, but we played a few gigs in clubs and discos, with club owners paying us in Cokes. We were happy to do it for the experience. We were writing our own songs, but they were not what the punters wanted to hear, unfortunately. I remember one evening we played at a working men’s club, and we’d run through lots of stuff before anyone even started tapping their feet. That was when we played ‘House of the Rising Sun’. I hate that song, but it always gets people going.
Afterwards the barman asked how old the drummer was, and said he thought I would go far. I have always put everything into my drumming, even in a place like that where they were definitely there for the beer, not the music. You see some drummers performing as though they are half dead, with a cigarette balanced on the edge of their kit and a cup of tea to hand. I can never play like that: for me, it’s all or nothing.
When I was twelve I met a whole new branch of my family. After Dad’s mother died he contacted the people in her address book, to let them know. One of the names was a sister of her first husband, Dad’s real father. There had been no contact between them since Dad was a baby, but the letter to his aunt triggered a feeling in her that Dad might like to meet that side of his family. He travelled up to St Anne’s, near Blackpool, and stayed with his father and a stepmother he had never met before, and also met two half-brothers and two half-sisters for the first time. He found the family very warm and welcoming, and after he had established a good relationship with them he took Matt and me to stay with them. It was a lovely experience, they were friendly and easy-going. My step-grandmother was gentle, homely and kind to us, and cooked us huge breakfasts in the mornings. Unfortunately, Dad’s wife Margaret was with us and, as had become her habit, she tried to impose her standards of behaviour on us. She insulted me by asking me if I had washed my hands after I had been to the toilet, as if I was a tiny child.
Dad enjoyed his new family for five years, until his marriage to Margaret broke up. Then, tragically, his father and stepmother decided to side with Margaret, who had told them a highly